carra leah hood’s Blog

Steven Levy “propose[s] that Facebook grant us a friend-list-do-over” in his recent article for Wired “Facebook Reset.” We might think that Facebook can “green” old hardcopy address books — or slips of paper stuck into wallets, piled on desks, or wadded up in bags. However, if we are like Levy, we “desperately need” a Facebook spring cleaning since our friend lists “[resemble] the contents of a house occupied by a hoarder.” Digital trash, green as it might be, is still trash after all.

This is a real TREAT! When you all take a break from turkey, tofu, pumpkin pie, and football, you might want to check this conversation out: click here to listen/view.

In “Web Cam Report Blasts Lower Merion School District,” which appeared in this morning’s Philly.com, Lower Merion School District officials were cited for “misstep after misstep.” The 69-page report stated that “‘overzealous’ use of technology ‘without any apparent regard for privacy considerations’” was at issue in the recent incident of webcam spying on students via school-provi ... read more »

I caught this episode of Dateline NBC last night (Sunday, 25 April 2010). One segment of “What Were You Thinking” set up a group of actors to fake-shock contestants on a faux reality show titled “What a Pain.” The actors were instructed to raise the voltage level of the electroshock each time contestants answered questions incorrectly until the voltage level reached 450, which was the maximum voltage of the shock machine the actors operated. When the actors flipped the volatage switches, the contestants screamed as if in pain. ... read more »

Jessica Simpson is on the cover of this month’s Marie Claire (April, 2010). This cover has made the national news and is a subject on the talk show circuit because she claims that she wore no makeup and that the photo editors did not photoshop her cover image. Demi Moore and Kim Kardashian have made the same claim about some of their recent photos and Britany Spears attests to letting thigh dimples show these days. ... read more »

It’s not like K-12 doesn’t have enough to contend with these days: what with the bashing of public school teachers and curricula across media venues, the rush to try and satisfy (unsuccessfully at a large number of schools) No Child Left Behind testing standards, the hand ringing effects of Diane Ravitch’s turn around, the huge decreases in state funding for public schools in all states, the rumblings about state governments’ challenges to teacher unions and tenure and pay rates and pensions and health benefits. And now this? ... read more »

Each show begins with a disclaimer: hoarding is a mental disorder. That’s true, although the DSM-IV doesn’t describe an individual diagnosis for the condition. Instead, hoarding – or disposaphobia – falls under OCD. The hoarders appearing on each episode of the A & E series Hoarders do seem to suffer from compulsive saving behavior. ... read more »